EUROCENTRISM IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: CRITICISMS FROM THE PERIPHERY
EUROCENTRISM IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: CRITICISMS FROM THE PERIPHERY

Summary/Abstract: This study investigates the critical arguments formulated by Western and Eastern literary theorists in their discussion of the eurocentrism inherent in comparative literature. It also analyzes the alternative models they propose in order to create wider frames of understanding of the literary phenomenon. Among humanist studies, comparative literature has been at the forefront of disciplines promoting the inclusion of non-Western literatures and cultures in its concept of “world literature.” The principle of nondiscriminatory totality has been one of the main propositions of comparative literature in the twentieth century. This has been a reaction to the eurocentrism characteristic of the concept of “world literature” (Weltliteratur) as it was originally conceived during the nineteenth century. Critiques coming from the so-called margins – particularly the Asian continent – have taken diverse forms, such as Edward Said’s orientalism, cultural sinocentrism and Japanese nationalism. This article discusses the positions formulated by comparatists who situate themselves along these models of criticism to comparative literature (and literary theory)’s eurocentrism. Ultimately, some of the solutions proposed to solve this crisis in comparative literature, in the attempt to incorporate in the literary canon a wider array of alterities, have simply replaced the Western canon with an Eastern one, without dealing with the tensions between the center and the margins.

• Details
• Contents